Book Two: The Sickness/Chapter Ten
The tenth chapter of Flashfire212's Book Two: The Sickness Chapter Ten: The Awakening Will groaned as the anesthetic wore off and his hazel eyes fluttered open. He couldn’t move even his little fingers, let alone his toes, because whenever he did, he was in agony. Everything was a daze, but slowly reentered focus to see Maddy, Tails and a strange black fox standing over him. “Will! You’re awake!” Maddy squealed, the high-pitches blasting into Will’s tired mind like an explosion. He groaned again, before whispering to her. “Yeah, Maddy. I’m awake. Just keep it down, please. My body is in agony.” “I take it you’re sickness is gone,” the strange black fox stated clearly. “I wouldn’t know. I hurt worse than while I was sick. I can’t draw on Chaos Energy for any sort of pain relief. It’s like torture.” Tails approached. “Will, the disease was affecting your Chaos Energy reserves. We couldn’t think of a cure until Ronan here,” Tails gestured to the black fox, “came to our dimension to catch an experiment of his. He found you and gave us the cure.” “Which is?” “Eight Chaos Inhibitor Gates, similar to Shadow’s Inhibitor Rings. They have been implanted directly onto your spine. They are what are blocking your energy, and they probably explain the pain you are in. There is nothing we can do. I am so sorry.” Ronan spoke again. “The pain will last for a week, at least. Afterwards, you must train to get back your skill and talent with both physical and energy-based combat, but for now you must rest.” Will groaned. “Hurts to much to sleep,” he moaned. Ronan pulled a small needle from a nearby set and jabbed it into Will’s arm, sedating him and allowing him to sleep. He then turned to the others. “Maddy, would you care to stay with him?” “Defiantly! I’ll do all I can to lessen the pain!” she replied. Ronan nodded and turned to Tails. “Would you be informing the family and friends, or shall I?” “Let us do it together, cousin.” Tails grinned, and the two twin-tailed foxes walked out to where Will’s family sat waiting for news. “He’s ok! He woke up five minutes ago, but he had to be sedated to relieve him of the pain he was in.” Tails announced to proud cheering and applause. “However, he must be trained to use his powers through inhibitor gates and also retrained how to fight, all starting a week from now.” Knuckles stepped forward. “May I speak to my son? It’s been a two weeks that he’s been on ice.” Ronan examined Knuckles as if he was a trapped animal. “I’m sorry, but we had to sedate him to get him to sleep. Not until tomorrow, I should say.” Knuckles threw a punch at the cream-colored walls, leaving long scrapes in the metal coating. “I’m sick and tired of people telling me what I can and cannot do with my son! I swear, Ronan, if I cannot speak to him tomorrow I’ll…” “You’ll what?” Ronan appeared incredibly calm, considering that he had a fist the size of a dinner plate with a blade as thick as his wrist hovering mere centimeters away from his nose. Knuckles growled a predator’s growl, deep-throated and husky, before making a movement to slash Ronan’s muzzle. Ronan didn’t even flinch as the knuckle blade never came close, but made a swish as it missed. Everyone blinked. Knuckles never missed at that range. Ronan gave a dark smile, one full of teeth that made everyone nervous. “Let it not be said that I cannot handle myself in a fight, but normally fighting is beneath my notice. You will be able to speak to your son tomorrow. I give you my word on that.” Ronan turned and left, his two black-and-green tails leaving a clean path on the grimy and worn metal floor. Shadow shook his head. “For a second there, I could have sworn that I sensed something. Not like a teleport, and that’s a bit too obvious. As if…no, that’s stupid.” “What, Shadow?” Sonic asked, his hands wrapped around Knuckle’s arm as he tried to restrain the furious red echidna. “As if a time pause was coming undone. As I said, it’s stupid.” Julie-Su shook her head, still with her hands wrapped around Knuckles’ waist. “Explains the miss, though. Now, honey, if we let you go, will you go and beat up the fox?” Knuckles appeared to have calmed slightly, although it was slightly deceptive. “No.” Julie and Sonic both let Knuckles go, only to have him storm halfway to Ronan’s bunkroom before Sonic could grab him again. “Honey, please. What has Ronan done to you?” Julie-Su shouted. Sonic let go as Knuckles turned to face his partner. “Nothing, except cut me out from talking to my own son! He’s just so arrogant! I can’t STAND him!” Julie shook her head, letting her bright pink dreadlocks swing around for a second. “Look, honey, when Will’s up to it, I want you to take him away somewhere. You can train him back up as you like, as well as follow the trail to the commander of that Dark Legion unit. I’d say take some people with you, for help. Who would you take?” “Well, I’ll take Sonic for training his reflexes and swordsmanship, Shadow to train him with the inhibitors and Chaos manipulation, Maddy to keep him company and Blood to train him in energy blasts and such. That’d do, I think.” Julie shook her head again. “What happens if his gates malfunction, or the disease comes back? Who are you going to take in case of that?” “You have a point. I’ll take Tails or Kyle for that.” Julie facepalmed. “Uh, I wasn’t part of building the inhibitor gates, and Kyle wasn’t part of implanting them. Only one person was part of both.” “Ronan.” Knuckles made it sound like he was swearing. “It had to be Ronan, didn’t it?” “Face, it, Rad Red, you’re stuck with him.” Sonic piped up. Knuckles shot him a glare. “Shut up, Sonic. Look, I’ll organize everything, but don’ expect me to be in a good mood if he’s coming.” Characters